2019 trade package #25: Nachos Grande

Fellow Barry Larkin enthusiast and awesome trader Chris of the somewhat recently redesigned Nachos Grande put in some quality time updating his trade lists by set not too long ago.  That's a move that I think will pay off handsomely both for his collection and those of many other collectors.  In my case I had plenty of interest in some of his trade fodder from his Fleer Sports Illustrated breaks, so I claimed a few cards, for which I'll be rewarding Chris pretty soon:

Everything here is from SI's debut collaboration with Fleer, and what a product it was!  Great photography (naturally) on vibrant, glossy cards printed on thick stock.  Best of all, a number of those cards were reprints of classic magazine covers.

The top three cards above are the Tigers I claimed--a pair of Tony Clarks and one Travis Fryman.  Two of the better players from some of Detroit's lean years, they manned the infield corners in Motown for a bit of '95 (Tony's first season), then 1996-97, until Fryman was traded. They combined for 121 HR, 483 RBI, and 13.4 bWAR as teammates and rare bright spots on some rough squads.  Thanks to TCDB I've become more open to adding cards of non-PC guys because I get stats on how many items I have of every player, so I was happy to add these, putting me at 107 of Clark and 117 of Fryman.

The other base card I absolutely had to have was one of the cover reprints I just mentioned, starring PC guy Ken Griffey Jr. and fellow 90s badass/HOFer Frank Thomas.  The two graced the front of the August 8, 1994 issue, one that came out during that year's strike-shortened season, which was one to remember for a number of reasons.

And speaking of covers, Kenny's fellow Junior Cal came along for the ride on an Extra Edition parallel (#273/500) of another one, the biggest get of the package for me.  This was somewhat early on in numbered inserts so it's a terrific piece, with the July 29, 1991-dated mag highlighting the Iron Man nearing streak game #1500 while "enjoying the best season of his illustrious career."  Baseball-Reference would tend to agree, noting a career-high 11.5 bWAR and personal bests in HR (34), RBI (114), AVG (.323, in a full season, so not including 1999), and OPS (.940).  Oh yeah, and he won his second AL MVP.

Fleer was always a manufacturer that remembered to think about the kids in the hobby, so they included these Great Shots mini posters as a fun insert.  Naturally I grabbed Cal's version along with one of perennial Gold Glover Greg Maddux.  They don't hold up to well after being unfolded and folded again numerous times but they look great and feature more of that interesting photography.

Chris didn't stop there, though, sending me a nice pile of Tigers while he was at it:

Plenty of interesting guys here.  Alvarez never panned out, but Anderson looked like he might provide some value (if not #1 overall pick value) before injuries derailed his career.  Blair was a bit like Edwin Jackson, coming to Detroit by way of five other teams and enjoying a pretty nice season (16-8) in '97, bouncing around a fit, then returning toward the end of his career.  As for Fister, the Tigers fleeced the Mariners for a very effective pitcher, then did the opposite in getting Robbie Ray (and others) from the Nats while having no idea how to use him and getting relatively little value when they flipped him for Shane Greene in a three-team deal.

Exavier Logan has one of the more disappointing nicknames in the game's history when you learn that it's meant to rhyme with "book" instead of sounding like the explosive weapon.  Iglesias, Infante, and Peralta were all decent-to-above average middle infielders for the team.  And card-collecting aficionado Dmitri Young gets paired with his much younger (12 years!) brother below.

Yep, there's Delmon, who had a few big hits over a couple seasons with the Tigers.  Appropriately enough, former speedster Brian Hunter leads off, and he's probably already stolen second, too, after he went off for a career high 74 swipes in '97.  Lastly, it's a bit sad to see former ace Scherzer on a card with Big Sexy Bartolo Colon (who shares my birthday!) and future Tigers IL in residence pitcher Matt Moore.

Chris, thanks again for making those SI cards available and getting them to me along with some great Detroit stuff so quickly!  I'm gonna take a little bit to get back to you while I await next month's show, but I'm also putting together a Sportlots haul that will be of great interest to you.

11/3/18 card show report: a Topps heavy day of serial-numbered insanity

I had a great time as always at my usual monthly show in Taylor a couple Saturdays ago, though it was anything but the usual in many ways.  While I got good value for the little money I spent at my favorite dealer's table, I had to limit my time there a bit so I could get home to catch the start of the Michigan/Penn State game.  Also out of the ordinary is the fact that the vast majority of what I bought is staying with me instead of heading to trade packages.  And out of those I ended up with way more Topps stuff than I usually do, though you'll see why in a bit.  Finally, I didn't turn up anything for my Michigan PCs so you won't see a second post on TMM this evening.

As for the comfortingly familiar, though, I had a blast pulling stuff for my many PCs, landing 49 cards of six players.  In all I snagged 60 from his 5/$1 box and nine that were a dollar apiece, giving him $20 for the bunch.  Here's what I got:

First is a trio of the Grandyman.  The former namesake of this here blog stars on one of the $1 cards I picked up, a low-numbered 2008 Topps Moments and Milestones Blue parallel.  I know there's multiple versions of each card so it's not as rare as it looks, but it was still fun getting a favorite player of mine on something /10.  Meanwhile the $0.20 entries were a Rediscover Topps Gold buyback of his 2014 Topps base, plus a numbered offering from the short-lived original return of Stadium Club in 2008 (#318/999).

Sticking with the G-men, player #2 is Griffey on a nice pair.  My second dollar card is an excellent Dufex insert from 1998 Pinnacle called Spellbound, and this is the first of Ken's seven issues which spell his last name.  He's joined in that 50-card set by the likes of Ripken, Gwynn, Frank Thomas, and others, and I wouldn't mind finishing up a few of those names!

Joining that is one of his two appearances in Upper Deck's 2008 Masterpieces base set.  The product is one of the many reasons I miss UD nowadays because it continues to impress me even 10 years later.  I have yet to track down the SPed second Griffey card from this set, by the way.

Tony Gwynn was a winner today, just not the winner (more on that soon).  Here's eight of the 10 cards I found of Mr. Padre at this show.  The first five are from a 1999 Pacific Omega insert called Hit Machine 3000, a set honoring Gwynn eclipsing the magic milestone that season.  There are 21 cards each numbered to 3000 so I have almost a quarter of the set!  These were $1 a pop, a reasonable price in my opinion.

Rounding out the group is a trio of Upper Deck inserts.  Curtain Calls was a foil-heavy chase set from 1999 Ovation and it differs greatly from the baseball texture of the base design.  The next two come from 2000 Hitter's Club and are called Epic Performances (again noting Tony joining the 3000-hit mark) and Generations of Excellence (again again noting that feat, joined by Wade Boggs who did the same that year).

Gwynn's day ends with a lower-end insert from the kid-centric '98 Collector's Choice, a Mini Bobbing Heads card--and one of my favorite inserts, 2001 Fleer Platinum Classic Combinations.  The latter included multiple appearances for several players, and here Gwynn is paired up naturally with "The Man", Stan Musial, on a card numbered 1501/2000.  It was worth every penny of the buck I paid for it.

Gwynn's PC got a nice bump but nobody was going to touch Greg Maddux's staggering 30 new cards on the day, exactly half of what I took home!  You wouldn't know it by this group, but as I keep teasing, you'll see why in a minute.  The first five include '93 Triple Play's Diamond Kings-like Gallery insert, drawn as always by Dick Perez.  The final dollar card today is insert #2 from 1995 Sportflix's Double Take chase set, a very cool card that pairs Mad Dog with Jimmy Key, a guy who wasn't in Maddux's class overall but who was quite good, good enough to be the runner-up for the AL Cy Young in '94.

The other three are from the subsequent decade, starting with Upper Deck's 2000 Pros and Prospects Best in the Bigs.  "Pinpoint control" is a good way to describe the mound artist.  Similarly, Fleer considered the pitcher the Cream of the Crop in this 2003 Hot Prospects insert.  Lastly, one of two non-standard size Maddux cards you'll see today is a fold-out Ticket Studs card from Fleer's 2003 Authentix.  This ticket-like card noted Maddux would open the season against Montreal in 2003 and that it was likely he'd throw a "pitching masterpiece".  Oddly enough he gave up five runs (four earned) in a 10-2 loss, though he'd eventually recover to have another great season.

The biggest reason Maddux was the biggest winner today is a huge pile of 2008 Topps Moments and Milestone cards.  They may not be as rare as their numbering makes them look, but for $0.20 apiece I happily added 24 of them to his collection.  This scan includes cards highlighting his 20 wins and 199 strikeouts during his first of four straight Cy Young-winning seasons.

Next, this one moves on to the '93 award he won in his first year in Atlanta.  I found one card from the 20 commemorating his 20 wins plus 14 from the bunch made for each of his 197 strikeouts.

These last six are from that same group and include the one with the lowest serial number, 002.

That wasn't quite all, though, as I also found this 1998 Sports Illustrated Then and Now Great Shots mini poster, the other odd sized card of the HOFer (and one of three such posters I found that day).  It represents card #601 in his collection meaning I'm celebrating another PC guy hitting the 600-card mark!

Among the many, many Rediscover Topps buybacks I flipped through, mainly from 1988 and '89 (what a surprise) was one other PC guy to join Granderson:  former Michigan pitcher Steve Ontiveros on his '88 Topps base.  I was glad to be able to add something new like this to one of my few PCs for which I've completed the regular checklist.  As with Granderson's card it appears to be the Gold version, but it's much easier to tell in-hand rather than through a scan.

The last player in today's post is the fourth member of my non-Tigers PC quartet, Cal Ripken Jr.  Only one of the three items I found of him in the $0.20 box was a regular sized card, a Class 2 version of his 2001 Topps Gold Label base.  If you're a fan of this design like I am make sure you check out Chris' group break over at Nachos Grande!

You'll remember I mentioned in Maddux's section that I found two other 1998 Sports Illustrated mini posters and these are them.  The second is from the same Great Shots insert set as his while the first is from the original Sports Illustrated product's Opening Day Mini Posters.  That one has Cal representing his Orioles on a fun collectible that doubled as a team schedule for the season.

Getting all of this and a few other things for a measly $20 meant yet another successful show for me as we head towards the end of the year.  Barring anything unforeseen I should be making it back to this show in December and padding my other purchases with big orders from Sportlots and COMC.  Thanks to Black Friday I should be doing a bunch of spending on the latter leading to another round of Christmas cards just in time for the holiday season!

2018 Sportlots purchases: a mountain of Maddux

It's about time I put this series to bed so I can get to the three(!) trade packages that are waiting for well-deserved screen time.  Please enjoy today's post:  the big finish starring Mr. Greg Maddux!

The "S"s have it here, with Stadium Club, Studio, SP, Sportflics, and, uh, SPinnacle!, especially Topps' best brand.  The top row includes a card from each year of 1991-93, the second is entirely '93, and '94 claims the bottom row.  You can see that my concerted effort to fill in some holes in PCs from my favorite products really paid off.

More '94s--the first five cards here--plus some from 1995.  The top three are repeat brands but card #1 in the second row is an insert about which I was ignorant: a Topps Traded finest chase card.  Pretty cool!  '95 chips in, among other things, a Leaf Great Gloves insert and Sportflix with an "X"!

UD's flagship '95 product finishes off that year and is in the midst of my favorite run of the product, from 1994-98.  '96's editions of Bowman's Best, Stadium Club, Studio, and UD are again top tier.  And you probably recognize the Classic Confrontations insert from previous posts in this series.  Maddux is the only pitcher in that group so you get to see how he fared against some of the more notable hitters around then.  Check out the back for yourself but briefly, he had the most success against Andres Galarraga and David Justice, and hated facing Tony Gwynn and Barry Bonds.

Now we start getting into the "more variety era" where brands experimented with lots of different ideas, often to the benefit of collectors (hint HINT, MLBPA).  Multiple examples of Donruss Preferred and Fleer's collaboration with SI--especially those cover cards!--along with perennial great E-X go well with stalwarts like Stadium Club and Finest, even if the latter is one of the worst designs in the product's run, in my opinion.

Here 1998 finishes on a strong note with a typically outstanding Stadium Club design, the always exciting Topps Gold, and Fleer's beautiful Ultra Artistic Talents insert that I've mentioned in this space previously as a great value.  The next row is a 1999 trio of mid-end Topps products in Bowman Chrome and Best--again, my least favorite design--plus an improvement from finest.  The bottom continues my big run on Sports Illustrated cards in this series, including a Headliners insert which notes on the back that between 1995 and '97, Mad Dog had fewer walks allowed compared to the number of starts he made.  That's crazy!

One of my all-time favorites, Upper Deck's Century Legends, leads off this scan with double the fun in the form of one card each with both of his main teams.  Year 2000 highlights include Bowman's Best--a huge improvement over the previous year's version--Fleer Showcase, and yet another Stadium Club look that gets high marks from me.

Everything here (plus the Absolute Memorabilia card above) comes from 2001, and it was a very good year for Maddux cardboard.  There's plenty more designs to enjoy, especially Bowman's Best (another favorite), Donruss Classics, Fleer Focus and Showcase, and Topps Gallery (bring it back!  The right way!).  Mixed in is another insert I was happy to grab on the cheap:  Stadium Club Capture the Action.  It's kind of like an alternate design of the base set and I like it a lot.

Donruss out of nowhere!  A five-card run of that manufacturer here includes the always-great Diamond Kings and Classics, plus the Archives-like Originals.  I think I'm short one of Maddux's entries in this set but did nab the ones utilizing designs from 1982, '84, and '88.  A Fleer pair of Flair and Showcase plus Finest and another amazing Gallery look make this a contender for best scan of the post.

Here's a hodgepodge of 2002-03 stuff.  Favorites include UD's 40-Man and World Series Heroes, Fleer Showcase once again, and the unfortunately one-and-done Playoff Portraits.  Though the latter is kind of superfluous due to Diamond Kings it feels like it has its own thing going and I wish it would have lasted longer.

2003 concludes here with Prestige and Studio designs I can appreciate, plus Ultra and Upper Deck base looks that are similar enough that I keep confusing them!  Donruss and Fleer are a great way to kick off 2004 thanks to Diamond Kings (not as good as the '03 version) and another Braves/Cubs twofer out of Classics, along with Flair and a really cool Showcase design.  You couldn't ask for a better card if you were a Braves fan.

And he's back with the Cubs!  Just a couple in the last scan reflected his return in 2004, but almost everything here gets it right.  Studio's 2004 iteration opens things with a kickass design featuring Maddux looming over the Windy City, and another excellent version from 2005 sits a couple cards below.  Diamond Kings returns with the reverse twofer, and Mad Dog looks great on a Donruss Greats card as well, though it's clear Fleer was the top dog when it came to a set with that name.  Heritage makes one of several appearances here as well.

Now we get into the weirdness of the one-plus seasons Maddux pitched with San Diego at the tail end of his career.  That's captured on five of these seven offerings, most of which came out from 2007-09, the best of which are 2008's Topps Heritage and UD Masterpieces.  An '09 Upper Deck base gets Greg once more with the Dodgers in his second LA stint, after which he retired.  Then we jump all the way ahead to 2016 and a nice throwback to Stadium Club, which throws it back to Maddux's heyday with the Braves.

When it comes to sports cards, goalies and pitchers are often the biggest beneficiaries of horizontal cards, so I'm happy to have a bunch to show off tonight.  There's plenty of variety, starting with Denny's Holograms from 1995 and '96, produced by UD and Pinnacle.  As always:  garbage food, great cards.  I snuck in another pair of inserts:  a '95 Leaf Checklists issue and '96 Fleer Smooth Leather.  Dude did pile up those Gold Gloves after all.  '96 base cards from Pinnacle Aficionado and Stadium Club sew up this group.

And we end this post (and the series) with a few more cards I really liked.  '97 Upper Deck remains my favorite set that I don't own, and I should rectify that at some point.  The '99 Topps Gallery base has one of my favorite photos in the entire series (not to mention one of the best designs):  a sliding Maddux with Pirates infielder Kevin Polcovich succumbing to gravity on an almost-Tatooine card.  And I grabbed that last insert, from 2003 Fleer Tradition Milestones, because I think his run of 15-win seasons is one of the cooler accomplishments of the game's recent history.

In a completely unintended twist of fate, this 100-plus bunch of Maddux cards bumps his PC to 567 items, or the exact same number in Tony Gwynn's.  Not bad at all.

This was a great run that once again proved the value of Sportlots and gave me plenty of post fodder, enough that I procrastinated heavily while finishing up showing off cards on both blogs.  But now it's done and I'll be moving on to some fun new trade posts soon!

2018 Sportlots purchases: Junior's Jargon

I may have asked this before, but did anyone else look forward to starting off their post-cartoon Saturday afternoons in the 90s with Fox's In the Zone--featuring the Junior's Jargon segment which had the title music above--along with the pregame show and Saturday game of the week?

On this late summer Saturday afternoon let's look at a big pile of Ken Griffey Jr. cardboard from Sportlots:

This first scan includes a nice bunch of early 90s Stadium Club with a pair of '92s, a '93 "Murphy" boxed set base, and a couple more from '94.  Lots of great looks at Kenny's sweet swing plus a home run derby victory there.  Besides those, down the middle is a fun '94 trio of Pinnacle and both of his Sportflics appearances that year.  Hooray, Sportflics!  Last up is a '95 Leaf Great Gloves insert, a reminder of his 10 straight Gold Glove Awards.

In the next scan we get another example of UD's 1995 SP Championship for this series, then a couple more Stadium Club issues from the same year.  1996 brings one of Bowman's Best's cooler designs, a typically strong Studio look, and a Topps Classic Confrontations insert, which shows how he'd performed against a mix of "aces" such as Mike Mussina (zero hits in 14 ABs) and Roger Clemens (17/36 with two homers).  The bottom row comprises 1997 cards from Donruss Signature, Studio once again, and the first of a bunch of excellent Topps Gallery appearances.

The first two cards here finish off '97 with an Ultra Checklist insert and Upper Deck Defensive Gems subset from the excellent base set that year.  Then '98 opens with the base version of Donruss Elite (as opposed to the iconic insert), then a pair of base cards from one of my favorite 90s brands, Fleer's Sports Illustrated (and its variants such as Then and Now).  Another fantastic Stadium Club issue joins the beautiful Topps Gold Label (Class 1) and card #1 from Ultra to finish up 1998.  That Ultra example is one of the best in the product's whole run, if you ask me, and Gold Label's debut couldn't have gone any better either.  Another Fleer SI card from 1999 gives us a very popular 90s duo with Junior joined by guy-who-hit-dingers Mark McGwire.

Now we're into the last of the Mariners cards for a bit with a few more '99s:  an SP Authentic insert called Home Run Chronicles, a high-flyin' Topps Gallery base (with a cameo by utility guy Charles Gipson), and a cross-manufacturer insert called Home Run Heroes, in this case from Upper Deck.  Then there's a quick look at early Reds cards from 2000 out of Fleer's E-X and Topps Gallery once gain.  A great shot of a backwards-hatted, laughing Kid on that Gallery card, no?  2001 opens with Donruss' classy, uh, Classics, and then there's a little run of Fleer in the form of E-X, Focus, and Genuine.  I'm not sure why I like that Focus design as much as I do, but anyway that's a cool snapshot of what I have to assume is the ivy at Wrigley.

Here's what I'm calling the "artistic" scan.  The top trio closes out 2001 with Fleer Premium, Topps Gallery, and Ultra.  That year is when Gallery went to a painting look instead of simple photos, and I'd describe what's going on in the Ultra photo as interpretive dance.  2002 then begins and opens with masterpieces from Diamond Kings and Topps Gallery (it really was a great brand back then!), with Donruss' Classics and an Originals base plus Flair in-between.  Flair's excellent design kind of fits the artsy theme as well!  This scan then finishes up with Griffey's Reds base from Donruss Team Heroes, and I need to see if I need the Mariners version as well.

2003 goes out quickly with Flair, Playoff's amazing one-and-done Portraits, and a Topps-branded Bazooka comic.  Even more art!  Portraits may have been a bit redundant with Diamond Kings around but looked fantastic in its own right.  The rest of the scan jumps a bit into the future with UD base from 2006-08 (including a cameo by some guy in a Giants hat, right, arpsmith?) plus Elite Extra, Leaf Certified, and Topps Gallery cards from 2004, '05, and '08, respectively.

The last of the vertical cards makes a stop in 1999 for the always excellent SP Legendary Cuts, SPx and a short-term stop with the White Sox (barf), and a pair of UD base cards, one of which captures Junior's return to Seattle.  Also having him rep Seattle are a 2016 Diamond Kings base and Topps Berger's Best insert.  Serious question:  if I hadn't told you which Topps reprint insert that was, would you have been able to guess?

The group of horizontal Griffeys was small this time, but fortunately I ended up with a few nice photos.  #1 is a second example from Fleer's Sports Illustrated Then and Now product from '98.  Second is an insert I've found for a few of my PC guys, Pacific's 1999 Invincible Sandlot Heroes.  2002's Ultra base features arguably the best image of the bunch.  2003 UD's design is nothing to write home about but I value the product enough to have included as many examples as I could find for some of my bigger PC guys.  And finally, 2017 Stadium Club brings us in its time machine back to very early in a future HOFer's career with a great shot of the Kid batting.

And yet we're not quite done.  First I have one of those fold-out posters that Fleer liked to insert back in the day, this one from 1998 SI Then and Now's Great Shots.  Griffey was one of those guys who actually showed joy in playing the game sometimes, but he could also be as focused as he needed to be.

And finally, once again I tracked down a Collect-a-Books oddball issue of one of my favorites, in this case from 1991.  These are fun to own and surprisingly cheap, though I don't suppose they're exceedingly rare.  As always I'm scanning every page for your reading enjoyment:

This gaggle of Griffeys was a blast to put together and show off, plus it was very productive toward his collection which now stands at 742 items and growing!

I now have three posts left in the series on this here blog (and four to get to on TMM), including two more solo projects and an ensemble cast as well.